Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome those initiatives and particularly the ability of the retail industry to feed into Government policy. Until now, the retail industry has been the forgotten sector of society. Some 250,000 people work in it and it has lost 50,000 jobs in the past few years. It is the weathervane of the economy and it is very sensitive to expectations. I spoke to retailers who say that when the Government talks about cuts, property taxes and budgets, there is a fall in retail sales. With the property tax, it was evident. Retailers also tell me that all the talk about the water tax has lowered people's expectations of the level of disposable income they will have in the future, which leads to them changing their behaviour and their spending. There is a resultant effect of lowering jobs in the retail industry. If a policy has the effect of losing jobs in a specific area, it is an anti-jobs policy. Is the water charge not an anti-jobs policy? How will the Government, after listening to the election and the problems people have with water charges and the difficulty within the retail industry, ameliorate the issue?

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